The Passage
by TheMovieGrrl
Summary: One ShotPeter visits Issac only to get a surprising vision of his own.Characters: Peter, Niki, and IssacPairing: Niki and Peter


Title: The Passage

Rated: PG-13

Author: TheMovieGrrl

Date: October 29, 2006

Series: Heroes

Genre: AU

Characters: Niki, Peter, and Issac.

Pairing: Niki/Peter

Special Note: This is a one shot, but could be more. It's dedicated to Nic ! My fandom buddy!

Word Count : 989

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**"Footfalls echo in the memory/ Down the passage which we did not take/Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden. My words echo Thus, in your mind."**

**-_TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot, "Four Quartets"_**

Peter went to Issac's again, it wasn't enough he saw the cheerleader, he needed more clues, and more answers to the images that besieged him the night before.

"How do you do it, man?" Issac passed him a cup of coffee as they stared at the paintings scattered across the room.

"I dunno. I just have to center myself somehow and just want it enough." He explained while his attention was drawn to a painting at the far end of the room.

A corner of a semi-painted canvas protruded out, revealing a strange symbol at the edge.

"You sound like that guy from the karate kid." Issac responded sarcastically. He couldn't look at Peter without imagining his drawings of Simone in the rain. He missed the way she looked at him, and how she felt under his touch. Everything was different now; he had to be friends with Peter. The guy was the only one who could help him; the only one to believe him.

"What's that over there?" Peter walked over to the painting and took it out. It was a semi-portrait of a woman, her face painted across the canvas, revealing a smile. She was charismatic, and Peter soon felt his thoughts narrow as the room began to blur.

He saw her sitting alone, staring at a mirror; blond hair tracing the contours of her face, her eyes pleading for help and solace. He reached out to touch the reflection in the glass, when in an instant Peter felt his body fall over. Suddenly thrust forward in time, Peter's sensation heightened, making everything around him vivid and clear: The smooth flavor of champagne on his lips, and the look of rapture in her pale blue eyes. It wasn't enough he could feel her fingers course through his hair, and hold on tight. His hands gripped taut and firm against her hip, as he felt the softness of each curve move in a steady momentum. Above them, an array of starlight loomed across a desert sky. Lost in the throes of intense emotion, everything suddenly came to a halt.

The space around him turned grey. He was isolated and alone until he saw someone in the foreground approach him. It was her again, the woman in the mirror; wearing nothing but a fitted strapless red gown, approaching him in slow strides. In her hand she held a folded note.

"What is this?" he found himself saying aloud, as the woman looked down at her open palms now where covered with blood. Peter stared horrified at her marked hands. "I don't understand… who you are?" he pleaded once more.

Tears flowed down her cheeks as Peter stepped closer. Hesitantly, she took a step back and turned up to the sky where suddenly rain poured down on both of them. The blood now mixing with water, created rivulets on the floor, spelling out the name: NIKI.

Peter let out a bellowing scream as he awoke on the floor, Issac rushed over to him.

"Man, I couldn't stop it. You zoned out…and when…when I touched your shoulder you collapsed. I didn't know what to do…you had that look in your eyes…and—oh god, are you okay? I didn't know what to do." Issac hovered close by. "Do you need me to help you up? I would…but man, your abilities…I don't want to hurt you."

"No…it's, just." Peter sat up slowly, and noticed a new painting on the easel. It was the woman in his vision. She was in the desert, her arms outstretched as if pleading for something. "Did I make that?"

"Yes, and I wasn't about to stop you either." Issac moved over to the kitchen and began to fill a glass with water. "I don't know for certain but what you said, and how you were screaming? I don't believe that's happened to me."

"Are you sure?" Peter asked as Issac handed him the glass.

"Trust me, Peter. I'd have the cops here sooner to lock me away in a loony bin."

"I don't understand what happened…I've absorbed abilities before, but this is…" Peter put a hand to his forehead as his mind throbbed with the images and feelings. _Who was Niki? What happened to her?_

"Hey, you still there?" Issac took a seat beside him, "There's more than one way to see the future. What you do, what you're capable of doing, Peter? I don't like to admit it, but it's stronger than what I can do now."

"But this was…it was intense. I don't know what to do."

"Heh, welcome to my world, Petey." Issac got up and started to collect his brushes and paints scattered amongst the floor. "If I were you, I'd find Niki."

"Wait, how did…" he turned and looked up to him.

"You were talking the whole time. You said her name twice." Issac walked over to a separate canvas. "And you kept drawing this."

Peter was astounded; it was the tattoo on her shoulder, the symbol, traced all over the canvas. "What about the cheerleader? What about Hiro?" Peter couldn't get his bearings straight. All he could do was feel, feel the woman's panic, fear, and sadness.

"You got Hiro on the phone, and I'm piecing together the clues about the cheerleader. We're in this together, Peter. We don't have a choice. That woman is important somehow…you have to find her. She's your vision, not mine." He finished explaining before walking off to the kitchen, leaving Peter alone.

_ "Be the one we need." _Hiro once told him. Though the road ahead lay cloaked in fog; there was no turning back now, there were more people out there who needed him, more people to save. It was his destiny.


End file.
